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Cambrian explosion

I've just noticed that your recent edit did not turn out too well: the previous distinction between "Types of evidence" (methodological, mainly for readers unfamiliar with the terminology; other readers might skip it) and "Evidence in the rocks" (the facts) was intentional; the deletion of section "Decline of stromatolites" left a few refs undefined. Wikipedia articles are like computer programs - the larger they are, the greater the risk that changes will produce undesirable side-effects, which means you have to check everything.

It can't be left like this. If I don't hear from you within the next 12 hours, I'll revert the article back to the version preceding your edit. Philcha (talk) 08:59, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The points you make about commented-out sections are fair, and it's no help that the stupid dogibot left its visiting cards everywhere, creating nested HTML comments.
Nevertheless you need to check the results of all your edits - including the "references" section, which is often a good indicator that something's gone wrong - when doing major edits on on large articles I guess I spend about 25% of my time checking for such undesired side-effects; the really difficult ones are the ones that create inconsistencies in the text without creating red refs.
I'll revert the article now, and then follow up your suggestion to removed the commented-out section but link to it in Talk. Philcha (talk) 11:49, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I've just noticed that you're someone I used to know - my excuse is that it's Sunday, what's yours? dogibot is a pain because it leaves its little HTML doo-doos everywhere, and as far as I can see that's the root cause of our recent troubles with Cambrian explosion. Since I don't expect you to go around after it with a pooper-scooper, I suggest the mutt should be house-trained. Is there a Woodhousebot? Philcha (talk) 12:20, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Great punch-line, it had me ROFL. Philcha (talk) 17:35, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Your use of Cite DOI template appears not to have worked very well. Your edit comment was "Use Cite DOI template for portability" - I'm no expert on templates and I'd be grateful if you could explain what that's all about. Best wishes, Philcha (talk) 11:40, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

It could certainly save a lot of hassle in many cases - I find I spend far more time than I like in checking for citation mark-up errors that mess up the main text (my Achilles heel). How flexible is it? For example does it allow editors to enter other parameters such as :
  • url - I'm fanatical about this as IMO Wikipedia's main audience is people who don't have subs to academic journals, so I add at least the url of a freely accessible abstract wherever possible (and separately cite in the same footnote a freely accessible and less technical news article wherever possible).
  • author, in case I want to wikilink 1 or more names.
  • title, so I can wikilink taxon names or other useful elements of the title, e.g. Doushantuo Formation.
I also suggest you should create private pages for testing this and other templates you're developing. Send me a message any time you want help with testing them (my professional background is computers and I've designed and run tests for some large, complex systems). Philcha (talk) 12:10, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Re testing, I suggest testing first on a private copy of a reasonably complex article that uses citations in a variety of ways, e.g. the basic usage plus footnotes that are mini-articles with several citations (a copy of Cambrian explosion might be suitable), and then on a real article you're actively working on - that way you'll spot any glitches pretty quickly.
I won't pretend I understand all of what you told me, since I know very little about the mechanics of Wikimedia. But it might be a good idea to discuss the template with someone who does understand the mechanics well. My concern is about the impact on system performance: if I understood your comments at all (??), they seem to imply an additional database access per citation that uses the DOI template, and Wikipedia's servers already show signs of stress (as far as I can see the the frequency of "Wikipedia's servers are having difficulties - please save your edit in a file and try again later" messages is increasing).
How does using the DOI template compare with using Google Scholar? I remember seeing a Village Pump discussion a couple of months ago where someone said the current Google Scholar beta has a citations tool. If so and it becomes part of the public Google Scholar failry soon it would have 2 advantages: editors don't have to know about yet another template; someone else's servers do the work. And no, of course I can't find the relevant Village Pump page now, which is annoying as it had a link to the Google Scholar beta. Philcha (talk) 13:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Damn, it's pretty bad when you can find my posts better than I can - and worse when I forget that it was my post. I think you're right, I was confusing Google Scholar with your Cite-o-matic.
I think "Don't worry about performance" will bite Wikipedia sometime. From the point of view of performance the worst most users can do at present is add a dozen images to an article. An article on an "academic" subject could have 30 - 150 citations, and it could be bad news if a large proportion of these added another DB access each - assuming of course that I understood the DOI template something like correctly. On the other hand I don't know what % of page views the "academic" subjects account for - if very small, it's no problem.
Forgive me if my responses to your efforts seem negative - you deserve better. What's really bugging me is that Wikipedia seems to be imposing an increasingly steep learning curve on editors, and citations account for the majority of it. There's a citation tool that can be displayed as part of the edit box' toolbar - but by default it's disabled in all users' preferences, so is available only for users who edit the 11th (!) tab of their preferences pages. There are other tools as well, but a new editor's chances of finding them are near zero, as are their chances of finding the citation template they need.</rant> Philcha (talk) 15:01, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

DYK

Updated DYK query On 12 May, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Ice sheet dynamics, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

PeterSymonds | talk 18:54, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

P-Tr extinction patterns

We have to stop meeting like this. I've posted at Talk:Permian–Triassic extinction event#Extinction_patterns some comments about your recent edit. Philcha (talk) 18:08, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Cambrian explosion: Increase in abundance and spininess of acritarchs

I really hate doing this, but I don't think Stanley (2008) tells us when metazoan herbivory became significant - see Talk:Cambrian explosion#Increase_in_abundance_and_spininess_of_acritarchs. How can I convince you that I'm not out to get you? Philcha (talk) 19:31, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I've added responses to your responses at both the Talk pages (CE and P-Tr). Brings back happy memories of our discussions of the CE in 2007 - hope it doesn't scare everyone else away. Philcha (talk) 09:40, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Guess what
BTW it may be no bad thing that we're the only 2 who are actively editing CE and P-Tr - it's been known at least since The Mythical Man-Month that software projects can acommodate at most 2 lead designers, and I've long suspected the same applies to big Wikipedia articles. Philcha (talk) 14:14, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Non-breaking space

Yes, I know that, I removed it because it wasn't appearing correctly. I didn't see it at the time, but you typed &nsbp; instead. If I'd realised that what what you'd done I would have just corrected it but I didn't see the error at the time and it looked weird so I removed it intending to look into it later. --Canley (talk) 21:56, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Aglaophyton

In this edit, your bot included "From the cover" as part of the article title. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:28, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

GA review of Chitinozoan

I've reviewed the article and left notes on the talk page. I've put the nomination on hold for seven days to allow the issues to be addressed. Feel free to contact me on my talk page, here, or on the article talk page with any concerns, and let me know one of those places when the issues have been addressed. If I may suggest that you strike out, check mark, or otherwise mark the items I've detailed, that will make it possible for me to see what's been addressed, and you can keep track of what's been done and what still needs to be worked on. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:57, 18 May 2008 (UTC)


Fair use rationale for Image:AstroLow.gif

Thanks for uploading Image:AstroLow.gif. You've indicated that the image meets Wikipedia's criteria for non-free content, but there is no explanation of why it meets those criteria. Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. If you have any questions, please post them at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions.

Thank you for your cooperation. NOTE: once you correct this, please remove the tag from the image's page. STBotI (talk) 10:25, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Extinction intensity image

Well done! I complained ages ago that the previous version was bass ackwards for Western readers, but I lacked (and still lack) the tech skills to fix it. Philcha (talk) 12:30, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

May 2008

Welcome to Wikipedia. It might not have been your intention, but you removed a speedy deletion tag from Image:AstroLow.gif, a page you have created yourself. If you do not believe the page should be deleted, you can place a {{hangon}} tag on the page, under the existing speedy deletion tag (please do not remove the speedy deletion tag), and make your case on the page's [[Talk::Image:AstroLow.gif|talk page]]. Administrators will look at your reasoning before deciding what to do with the page. Thank you. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹoɟʇs(st47) 20:34, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Great bot!

I have watchlisted Arunachal Macaque and just saw your bot adding the doi! Great work.....just dropping in appreciation! CHeers. Prashanthns (talk) 14:29, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Bug report

See this test edit: [1]

I'm reverting the edit, as it didn't work. Bob the Wikipedian (talk) 15:05, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

It still doesn't appear to be working. Bob the Wikipedian (talk) 15:18, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Same here: There's a DOI Not Found error message for the URL your bot placed. Firsfron of Ronchester 15:54, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
The doi the bot found, 10.1666/0094-8373(2004)030<0253:CHOPOM>2.0.CO;2, is correct. The problem lies with the {{cite journal}} template, and is being discussed on its talk page. The solution I thought I'd found there may not in fact work... I'll head over there and think about it. Thanks for the bug report! Smith609 Talk 16:02, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
Feel free to revert to the bot's version when you get it working properly. :) This could be a hugely useful tool on WP:DINO. I wish you much luck. :) Firsfron of Ronchester 16:06, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Bug report II

See this edit [2], the bot forgot a "1" in the DOI. Other edits on the articles found in my watchlist were good additions. Pro bug catcher (talk • contribs). 01:39, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. Thanks for pointing this out; I'll look into it before activating the bot again. Smith609 Talk 19:45, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 Fixed - thanks again for your diligence! 10:18, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Preformed v performed

Also in this edit. I don't think it's safe to assume that "performed" is always the right spelling, and would suggest that this edit at least ought to be manually approved in each instance. Smith609 Talk 12:09, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Hi Smith, thanks for pointing that one out. I've also added it to my exception list (along with exceptions for 'preformed' in 86 other articles there already). For what it's worth, I totally agree that preformed->performed is not the sort of substitution that can safely be done automatically, but I don't do any fully automatic editing with this bot. Every change it does has to be manually approved, it's just that occasionally I slip up when reading the diffs and an incorrect edit gets through. Anyhow, thanks again. CmdrObot (talk) 13:23, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey there

The DOI bot's been popping up all over my watchlist, and I have to say its hit-vs.-miss rate has significantly improved :) Thank you, and keep up the good work. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 14:10, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey I added the widget to my monobook but I haven't noticed any new tags or anything different, any ideas? Thanks, Cirt (talk) 13:59, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
You may need to refresh your browser's cache (Ctrl-F5 in Firefox). Try restarting your browser if that fails. The links should appear at the bottom of the "toolbox" section. Smith609 Talk 14:07, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
That did it, thanks! Cirt (talk) 02:24, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Template taxobox questions

Hello from Brazil (sunny today but we have had a lot of rain recently). Is your telescoping taxobox ready for heavy-duty use? Also, I have requested the addition of "type_locality" as a parameter to be included in the taxobox (probably best located just below "type_species_authority"), but the request, although supported, has languished. Could you help with this? Many thanks for your time.--Wloveral (talk) 23:20, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Cycad

Thanks for adding the cladograms, but the accompanying reference citation is incomplete. It is creating an error with the {{Reflist}} template because it does not contain the publication info. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:39, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Evolutionary theory

PS This might explain our differences on another talk page, though.[3] I can't see how we'll reach agreement about the use of words describing evolution when one party dismisses it as completely non-factual. If this is the case, please be straight-forward about this to avoid confusion. Thanks. --Blechnic (talk) 07:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

RfD nomination of Wikipedia:DOI

I have nominated Wikipedia:DOI (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) for discussion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at the discussion page. Thank you. ╟─TreasuryTag (talk ╬ contribs)─╢ 16:24, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


Template:Google scholar cite

I created a {{Google scholar cite}} template so I can easily store and communicate searches that use Google Scholar enhanced with the Wikipedia citation assistant. For example, if I want to tell another Wikipedia user who might be interested in Miscanthus about this great tool, I can now say: "Hey, click this link to {{Google scholar cite|miscanthus|search the Google Scholar Wikipedia citation assistant for: miscanthus}}". The lucky recipient merely has to click once to see a sample search, and then click a {{Wikify}} link to see the resulting {{Cite journal}} template call. That's easier and more compelling than trying to convince a distant stranger to browse to the tool's input form and fill it out. On Wikipedia we have lots of users who don't "get" citation templates and footnotes, and it's hard to demonstrate things persuasively when we communicate with occasional Wikipedia users we do not meet in person. Therefore I want to provide personally relevant one-click demos of these types of tools, to lower the hurdle as much as possible. Anyway, I invite your comments and criticism (don't hold back if I fouled something up). I'm still testing the template, so I don't know if I encapsulated all the input fields properly yet. --Teratornis (talk) 08:03, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

That looks pretty handy - you've clearly put a good deal of work into it! Thanks very much.
I guess I ought to pay some attention to the tool, now - There have been a great deal of improvements I've thought of while implementing DOI bot which I have yet to implement! Smith609 Talk 08:25, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
I did a bit of work, but mostly I copied from other templates I and others had worked on previously: {{Google custom}}, {{Google wikipedia}}, and others in the {{Google templates}} list. So I was able to copy the basic layout and especially the style for the documentation page. Doing all that from scratch would be a job, but copying from an existing template and editing is easier. The somewhat hard step for the {{Google scholar cite}} template was determining the exact search URL to construct, since the form uses method=POST to generate a clean URL. Using method=GET makes for a more frightening but informative (and bookmarkable, and communicable) URL, so I saved the form to a local HTML file and edited it to use method=GET so I could see what I missed on my first attempt to read the form code and put the field names into a URL. I initially did not see the need to send the search button value - I only paid attention to the field names. That was the only difficulty I had, since everything else was just a rehash of things I had done before. --Teratornis (talk) 19:27, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
While we're on the subject of improvements, how about:
  • Expand the {{Cite journal}} output page to show two or three versions of the template call. The first version would be the one you have now, showing the minimal number of parameters. The second and possibly third would show additional (blank) parameters. This would help the user in cases where the tool does not pick up all the desirable parameter values, and the user needs to edit more values into the template call. Currently this requires manually browsing to the template page, and then some tedious copy and pastes to add more parameters to the template code from the tool.
  • Think of a concise name for the tool. "Google Scholar enhanced with the Wikipedia citation assistant" is a bit unwieldy to use as a subject of a sentence when we document the tool. A one or two word name would be nicer. Ah, but it looks as if you changed it to Universal Reference Formatter in WP:CITE#Citation creation tools.
  • The first time I stumbled into the tool, it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize I need to click the {{Wikify}} link. That's because I started with just the link to the form (which I found in WP:EIW#Citetools, and it looks like that reference needs an update too). And also because the Google Scholar results page looks so similar to the plain Google Scholar results page that at first I did not notice the extra {{Wikify}} option. I see you fixed that on the new search form by adding a sentence of instruction.
  • There is a typo on the search form: "Firefox Seach (sic) Assistant"
  • The template output page has another typo: "Remeber (sic) to create a Reference section if needs be"
  • Not everyone knows the terms: DOI, PMID or PMC. I guess they stand for: Digital object identifier, PubMed Identifier, and PubMed Central. I suggest linking those acronyms to their defining Wikipedia articles where they occur on http://toolserver.org/~verisimilus/Scholar/ and User:Smith609/Cite/doc.
  • The template output page could link to the Wikipedia instruction pages: WP:CITE and especially WP:FOOT, and to the {{Cite journal}} page so the user can easily read the documentation for that template and see the field definitions.
  • Perhaps the beta form: http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~ms609/Wiki/Scholar should contain a link to the new form, with a sentence telling the user to go there. Just in case the user should follow some stray link to the old form, as I did.
--Teratornis (talk) 19:27, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
I found some more typos on the form interface:
  • PMID and DOI are the most reliable, but a combination of earlier fields may also yeild (sic) results.
  • If the citation doesn't expand, check (whether should go here?) your data is correct, and consider adding a little more.
--Teratornis (talk) 05:22, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I added the four example searches from your Universal reference formatter to: Template:Google scholar cite/doc#Examples. Since the "q" field in the form corresponds to the first unnamed parameter in {{Google scholar cite}}, the syntax is compact: for example, {{Google scholar cite|Nash 1950}} generates the search link: {{Google scholar cite|Nash 1950}}. I'm starting to like this tool a lot. Now I must educate the users who are messing up the references in the articles I care about (such as Peak oil, Oil price increases since 2003, etc.). --Teratornis (talk) 06:33, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

A barnstar for your efforts

What a Brilliant Idea Barnstar
For your efforts on the Universal Reference Formatter. --Teratornis (talk) 05:22, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Potential WP security problem

Hello, Smith609. You might be able to help on the above. It is sensitive enough that I am reluctant to discuss it online. (On the other hamd, maybe it's not a big deal. I'm not expert enough to know which it is.) Is there a way I could reach you other than on WP, possibly including through a willing thurd party? I have an email address but would rather not disclose it here. Thanks. --Thomasmeeks (talk) 12:06, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Try using Special:EmailUser/Smith609. Also, if you make sure that your email address is listed in your preferences (don't worry, it isn't made public by doing so) and you check the box "Enable e-mail from other users", then Smith609 will be able to "reply" to you using Special:EmailUser/Thomasmeeks.
« D. Trebbien (talk) 13:17 2008 June 12 (UTC)
Ah-ha. OK. Thank you. I'm a little Wiki wiser. --Thomasmeeks (talk)
I did follow the above suggestion. If the email is not received in a reasonable time, please let me know. --Thomasmeeks (talk) 16:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposal for a human-bot hybrid to simplify citation cleanup

See my ideas in: User:Teratornis/Mechanical turk. I invite comments, criticism, telling me it's all been tried before, etc., in User talk:Teratornis/Mechanical turk. I'm still looking for any prior art, so it's possible my proposal may be astoundingly ignorant. That's why I'm asking for your feedback. --Teratornis (talk) 22:48, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Broken references

Hi!

I of course applaud your ongoing work in making the Cambrian explosion stuff better organised, and appreciate the results so far.

However, have you noted that you break some links? The reason is, that a number of references were repeated in the old article; when you move large chunks of content to new subarticles, you sometimes move a reference-by-label to a context where the reference label is not defined. (If you are wondering what I mean, you could go through the various versions of Discredited hypotheses for the Cambrian explosion. As you may see, I fixed one broken reference, but then you introduced a new one.)

Perhaps you already have thought of this, and have some plan for fixing the references later, more or less automatically. (Of course, I guess it could be done by transcluding a file with references:-); but that seems a bit like shooting sparrows with canons.) E.g., there may be some 'bot which is good for this work. In that case, let me know; I'll just ignore the red warnings when I see them.

However, if you incidently didn't notice the problem, please consider the possibility of fixing the references en passant. Actually, when I fixed your former broken reference, I had to start by finding the historic version of Cambrian explosion immediately before you removed the discredited hyptheses stuff, since there I could follow the labeled reference from that stuff, and then follow the footnote back to the place where the reference label was defined. This should be much simpler to do before you remove the stuff than after. You could thus first preview the article Cambrian explosion after the new cut, and also create/add to the subarticle; and then, if you see that there are broken links in the subarticle, you may go back to the uncut Cambrian explosion, and follow the unbroken reference to its source.

Best wishes, JoergenB (talk) 17:32, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Very good! As long as I know this is part of the "ongoing work", my annoyance level decreases drastically... I do appreciate that this indeed is a major text mass to work with. Yours, JoergenB (talk) 17:49, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Image:Coelomate 01.png

How did you insert Image:Coelomate 01.png into Cambrian explosion? I just got my browser to search the wiki-text for "01.png" and it found nothing. I was thinking of trying out the template for wikilinked text in diagrams that you mentioned. Philcha (talk) 16:35, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Are you suggesting I should replace the current template:coelom with a new version, and revert if the new one is unsatisfactory? I'm happy to do that if you agree. Philcha (talk) 16:47, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Help! [4] has my current effort at Template:Coelom. The top & bottom padding are ridiculous and the right border of the inner box has disappeared. Philcha (talk) 20:30, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! I see what the problems are now: Template:Annotated image and Template:Annotation need more parameters (with sensible defaults) - something like Template:HiddenMultiLine, which I produced and which you can see in the chess diagrams at Alexander Alekhine. Do you mind if I have a go at making them more flexible and then documenting them? Philcha (talk) 13:25, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Fear not. Template:HiddenMultiLine bristles with params, but usually only 2 are needed. Philcha (talk) 16:36, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Do you know where Template:Annotation is used. One of its parameter names, color, is inappropriate: in CSS, the color property specifies the text colour; the current color paramenter it actually specifies a background colour, the corresponding CSS property name is background-color and bg-color would be an easily recognisable abbreviation.
The reason I'm raising this is that I'm thinking of extending Template: Annotated image so that, if one passes it the formatting params for Template:Annotation, these become the defaults for all the annotations. for example that would make possible to let 4 out of 5 annotations use the values specified for Template: Annotated image, while in the 5th one could could over-ride that, e.g. if the 5th annotation is on a part of the image that provides a different background.
If the current color param is never used, it can be changed with no problems, and I'd use bg-color for the background. If color is only used a few times and they can be identified easily, it would be no great hassle to change these instances. Philcha (talk) 21:15, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
I knew there had to be a way to find out - my eyesight must be even worse than I realised!
OK. I'll change the param name in Template:Annotation and then update all these uses to match. Philcha (talk) 21:23, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Use of minor edit button

Hi, in the creation of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Geology/Cambrian explosion you used the minor edit notation on nearly all of your edits, many of which would not and should not be characterized as minor. It gives me a bit of suspicion that more is going on when I see a minor edit in my watchlist that added 2400 bytes to a page. Please review your use of that feature, and hope you have a great day. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 04:26, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry – it's checked by default and I rarely think about it. I'll try to remember to change it more often! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 08:53, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

ISBN

In your latest edits to the Hornwort article, (see) you replaced all the hyphens in the ISBNs with endashes. Is this a new policy for ISBN format, or was this an error? --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:21, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Also, many plant morphologists disagree with considering Horneophyton as related to the hornworts on the basis of its columella, particularly since the columella is not unique to hornworts, but occurs in mosses as well. Kenrick and Crane contend that the presence of a columella may be a synapomophy for all stomatophytes, but was lost in the vascular plants. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:26, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm familiar with the arguments for a hornwort relationship, but they're rather weak arguments of the sort that count characters out of context. Horneophyton has terminal branching sporophytes, and branching of sporophytes are unknown among any living bryophytes. Also, hornwort sporophytes grow from a basal intercalary meristem, which would make terminal branching architecturally impossible. I may be able to pick up a copy of the article you've cited later today, and get a chance to look at the authors' arguments in more detail. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:23, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

The DOI bot and broken DOIs

Hi Smith,

Is there any way you can change your bot so that pages with broken DOIs don't get tagged with a nasty "Pages with broken DOIs" tag without an edit summary letting real users know that maintenance tags have been added? All the bot says now is "citation maintenance", which is the same thing it says when it encounters no problems at all. I'd like to know when Featured Articles like Massospondylus get a nasty maintenance category tag. Firsfron of Ronchester 04:42, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

It would be very difficult, but I'll have a crack when I next have the time. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 09:14, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

En dashes

If you must use them (as many of us do), please learn when to use them. Do not do a bulk search/replace on a whole page, since not all hyphen minus symbols should be en dashes (and vice versa), or may alternatively be an em dash. Individually search/replace en dashes as necessary (e.g., page ranges, but not ISBNs, etc.) Also, editing talk pages is generally unadvised (see WP:TALK). +mt 14:28, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Ahh, I see the issue (and sorry for the rude tone .. just woke up). Does it happen when you go to a different computer/browser? If you recently made the change, try holding shift + click refresh to completely reload the page and components to your browser (assuming it is Firefox). Other than that, I can't say. +mt 14:38, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Citation templates

Really, we don't need to all do the same things the same way; what matters is what the reader sees. Please stop trying to neaten Wikipedia to what you like and use; different strokes for different folks. I see you've been editing for two years and congratulations; isn't it time to leave well enough alone? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:27, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

You seem rational; you may want to take a turn at seeing the nonsense that goes on at FAC. I had an article opposed because it used <gasp> hyphens instead of endashes in the footnotes; there was one opposed because it didn't use &nbsp; in its footnotes. Some of this gets suppressed, but not enough; and there are all too many articles which get promoted or denied without consideration of content at all. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:55, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
WP:FARC is infinitely worse, especially since there's usually nobody interested in defending the article. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:00, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Consolidating template information

I love your tool, but I wish that it consolidated the templates as the other template filler does (http://diberri.dyndns.org/cgi-bin/templatefiller/index.cgi?ddb=&type=pubmed_id&id=9818798). Breaking them into new lines takes up a ton of space, and it's really bad when you have a couple footnotes in a row. This problem was raised, for example, here. Please consider consolidating the information; the text is more important than the reference information, especially when it has all been inputted by machine. ImpIn | (t - c) 07:16, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Template:Coelom

I'd prefer to name this Template:Coelomate basic, so that the more general names Template:Coelom and Template:Coelomate are free for other uses. I know how it annoys me when e.g. an article uses a general title (try Suture, which should be a disambig page, with the current content moved to e.g. Suture (surgical)!) although it focuses on a narrow aspect. Philcha (talk) 13:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


" you ask my permission too much!" It's not often than someone suggests I'm insufficiently assertive. Philcha (talk) 09:59, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
Is it possible for a template "call" to pass parameters through to inner templates? Philcha (talk) 10:26, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
I notice you've incorporated into Template:Annotated image the additional params annot-font-weight, etc. This suggests we have a misunderstanding. What I'd like is for the outer template to be unaware of the passed-through params. The point of annot-font-weight and other prefixed variants is to allow the outer template to contain other templates as well, which might also have font-weight, etc. params. If the outer template has to use any of the passed-through params, conflicts can arise, e.g. if one tries to set annot-font-weight and xxxx-font-weight (that is used by some other contained template). So I want the outer template to pass the values of annot-font-weight, etc. through to the inner templates but not use them itself. Is that possible? Philcha (talk) 11:39, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
Oh, I see. The only way to do that would be to hard-code the annotations into the template itself, so the template would look like:
{{Annotated image
|image=
|annot-font-style=arial
|annot-font-weight=bold
|annot1-text=Annottion text
|annot1-x=100
|annot1-y=200
|annot2-text=Annottion text
|annot2-x=150
|annot2-y=250
|annot3-text=Annottion text
|annot3-x=100
|annot3-y=200
|annot3-font-style=Times new roman
|annot2-font-weight=normal
}}
This increases the difficulty of using the template for the first time, and increases vastly the space and complexity for everybody.
I think the current implementation is sufficiently slick; if you wanted to include other annotations you could overlay a second "plain" div without the styles. I can't really envision what other templates you would want to use as an annotation - did you have anything in mind, or are you just coding speculatively? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 12:34, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

GA, FA, etc.

By accident I found your words of wisdom on the subject, and have enshrined them on my page. Philcha (talk) 13:37, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Cambrian explosion

Sorry to be a bore, but I'm concerned about the way it's going. I know you felt concerned for a lot longer (and often with good reason) when I was reshaping it. But I hoped the current effort would not have to reculer quite so far in order to mieux sauter. My biggest concern is still the lack of structure at 2 levels:

  • Within Cambrian explosion I think it's less clear now what points many sections are trying to convey. I also notice some of the "potted history" sections have been removed / downsized although the analysis at the end emphasises them - Kimberella is a notable example.
  • It looks like the lack of an overall plan for the whole package of articles is leading to duplication. For example Burgess shale type preservation contains material (about the main types of fossil) that really ought to be in articles about the individual lagerstãtten. The phrase "Burgess Shale type preservation" (contrasted with "Ediacaran type preservation" and / or "Orsten type preservation") is fairly common in the literature, and it would be useful for Burgess shale type preservation to concentrate on the aspects of preservation that make Sirius Passet, Chenjiang and Burgess Shale more like each other than any of these is to Orsten or to any Ediacaran fossil beds. Naturally that will involve explaining what types of fossil each preservation type is most likely / unlikely to preserve.

As usual the other thing I'm concerned about is intelligibility for non-specialist readers. As I've commented before, the CE is a brute of a topic because one needs background in so many fields, and because non-specialist readers have zero to minimal prior knowledge of them (dinosaur articles are for wimps!). The amount of extra text that requires will make the article as long as ever unless the content stays very focussed on the questions raised at the beginning - Was it real? Did the major metazoan taxa suddenly appear from nowhere? Was there a riot of disparity? Why did it happen? When then? What does it tell us about evolution? Philcha (talk) 01:34, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I didn't write "types of organism preserved". You may be refering to "what types of fossil each preservation type is most likely / unlikely to preserve". IIRC someone (Butterfield?) wrote that Burgess Shale fossils are relatively large but flattened, while Orsten preseverves only small fossils but in better 3-D detail. Philcha (talk) 12:54, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
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